A Life, Freed (Rowan Slone #3) by Tracy Hewitt Meyer

also by Tracy Hewitt M eyer A Life, Redefined A Life, Forward The Reformation of Marli Meade

Editor: Chelsea Cambeis Proofreader: Tori Ladd

a life, freed Copyright © 2021 Tracy Hewitt Meyer All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please write to the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by BHC Press Library of Congress Control Number: 2020941710 ISBN: 978-1-64397-210-7 (Hardcover) ISBN: 978-1-64397-211-4 (Softcover) ISBN: 978-1-64397-212-1 (Ebook) For information, write: BHC Press 885 Penniman #5505 Plymouth, MI 48170 Visit the publisher: www.bhcpress.com

Whisper my name upon the wind.

Tell me your secrets true.

An angel’s wings have learned to soar.

A little girl’s dreams have, too.

Life is a golden ray, Warming my face with light.

Leaving me consumed with love, And mine own star shining so bright.

~ Rowan Slone ~

a life, freed

chapter one Somewhere in the distance, a baby was crying, fighting to lure me out of sleep. Every few wails, there would be a moment’s reprieve, and I would plummet back into the sweetest of slumbers.

Then the high-pitched screech would begin again, yanking me back into the world of the unfortunately wide-awake.

I flipped onto my stomach and pulled a pillow over my head.

Stop, I wanted to say. Stop crying. But the little calls of distress rose higher and higher, barely stopping for breath, until I was sitting up in bed running a hand through my disheveled hair. A glance at the clock told me it was 2:30 in the morning.

“Jess?” I tried to say my best friend’s name, but the dryness of sleep had swallowed my voice. I took a gulp of water as the crying took an abrupt break. “Jess?” I called out, louder this time. When I didn’t hear an answer, I rolled out of bed, careful not to squish my cat, Scout, who slept on the pillow beside me. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I started for the door but hit my toe on the nightstand.

“Ouch!” I jumped up and down as if that would take away the sting. “Jess?” I hobbled into the hall.

“Sorry, Rowan,” she said, her voice strained.

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I could just see her silhouette in the dark. She was sitting in the wooden rocking chair in the tiny living room of the apartment we shared, rocking her son back and forth. Back and forth.

“He won’t quit crying. He just never quits crying.”

If tears had a sound, I could hear them in her voice. I closed my eyes, trying to gather any ounce of patience I could. I had a big biology test in five hours and had only gone to bed an hour ago after staying up to study. Just as the bite of a complaint formed on my lips, I sighed. She couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help it.

I opened my eyes. “Does he have a fever again?”

Jess turned her head to the side. The dim night-light caught the moisture on her cheeks. I was afraid she would start wailing as loud as Jacob, which wouldn’t make our neighbors, who were already sensitive to his nightly rants, any happier. At five months old, Jacob had spent the better part of his young life crying, the middle of the night being his preferred time.

Jess held him in her arms. His little fists pounded against her shoulders, his back as rigid as a board as he erupted again. “No.” Jess’s voice quivered as she tried to project over his. “At least not the last time I checked. He feels warm now, but he’s been crying for thirty minutes. I’m surprised he didn’t wake you up earlier.”

I shuffled the short distance to the couch and fell onto it like a rag doll. A yawn that started deep in my belly and refused to be stifled escaped out of my mouth. I tried to blink, but my eyes wouldn’t open again. I instantly fell back to sleep. When Jacob broke into another outburst, I jolted awake.

Jess flashed me a sympathetic smile that in no way reached her tired eyes.

I didn’t want to yawn again and make her feel worse, but I couldn’t help it. “Sorry. I just went to bed.” Usually my dog, Levi, got up when the baby did, but even he stayed in my room tonight.

We were all exhausted, humans and animals alike.

“Oh, that’s right.” Jess pushed off the chair and started to bob up and down. Up and down. Sometimes, the motion calmed him.

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If it weren’t so early in the morning, Jess and I would’ve laughed about how strong our thighs had gotten since Jacob was born. “I forgot about your biology test.” Up and down. Up and down.

Jacob blasted into another long-winded, high-octave wail that sounded congested, as if the noise traveled past layers of phlegm in his chest and throat before whizzing out of his mouth. I pushed off the couch. “Let me try.” I raised my leaden arms. “Come here, buddy.”

Before the last word left my mouth, Jess thrust him at me and darted toward the bathroom.

“Guess your mama had to pee.” I bobbed up and down, my arms growing tired after only a minute. Jacob was a small child.

He had been almost seven pounds at birth but had grown meagerly over the past five months. I moved him onto my hip and ran a hand over his back. “There, there. It’s okay. No worries, right?”

I bobbed a little harder. Then I bobbed and walked. On the third circle around the room, his head fell toward my shoulder as little shaky whimpers wafted through the air. My thighs were on fire, and I was wide-awake now, but at least he was starting to settle.

That didn’t mean it would last, so I braced myself. Unfortunately, this was a common occurrence.

Jacob was a fussy baby. He came out of the womb screaming and hadn’t stopped yet. Jess had asked the doctor at the free clinic about this, as well as about his trouble sleeping. He said Jacob was prone to sinus and ear infections, and gave Jess a prescription that did little to squelch his nightly rants.

I had grown used to being woken up at night, but I had hoped that tonight, at least, he would sleep, especially since he’d just started a new prescription. The biology test counted for as much as a final, and courses were harder in college than high school—way harder.

I was doing well but never well enough to feel like I could secure a spot in veterinary school. That may be over three years away, but I couldn’t let my grades slide. It was too competitive.

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I bit my lip, butterflies of anxiety beating a familiar rhythm in my stomach. I had to do well on this test. It seemed that Jacob didn’t care too much about that, though.

Soon, he was sound asleep on my shoulder, making me sweat.

I eased into the rocking chair and tried to close my eyes, but found myself staring at the far wall. My lids were wide open like they were being held in place with toothpicks. Even when I could feel my eyeballs start to dry out, I couldn’t close them. This did not bode well for my test.

I ran a hand up and down his back, breathing in his familiar baby scent—a scent that was all too similar to my own baby brother’s. Even though Aidan died years ago, it still amazed me that I could remember how he smelled.

Jacob reminded me so much of Aidan it often made my breath catch in my throat. I loved my little brother with a ferocity that had surprised even my ten-year-old self. And so the grief and the guilt over thinking I had caused his death had left me teetering on the edge of insanity for the next several years of my life.

I kissed the top of Jacob’s head, feeling a swell of love, then turned my stare to the window. The one and only streetlamp that illuminated the parking spaces had gone out, leaving the world beyond the window encased in black.

I found out a few years ago that I wasn’t the one who killed Aidan. My mother had—out of fury that my dad loved Aidan more than her. She was in jail now and probably would be for the rest of her life. Discovering the truth had pushed me off that edge of insanity, and I had landed safely in the arms of my ex-boyfriend, Mike Anderson, and his family—safe enough to bounce back and work on putting the pieces of my life together. Why these thoughts were haunting me now, though, I couldn’t know, other than Jess seemed to be struggling, and I knew that feeling all too well.

Another kiss to Jacob’s head brought a soft sigh from his lips.

When Jess walked back into the room, the light caught her freshly

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tear-stained cheeks. She saw me staring, and with a quick swipe of her hand, the moisture was gone.

“You go back to bed.” She wrapped her hands around Jacob.

I let her peel him off my chest, my skin cooling from the loss of his warmth. I ran a hand over his silky, dark hair, then stumbled toward my bedroom. My eyes were closed before I even lay down, but just as my head hit the pillow, a piercing scream shot through the apartment. I heard Jess release a string of curses to rival Jacob’s cries in volume. I shoved my earbuds in and turned on classical music, the soft melodic notes mixing with the now distant wails of my best friend’s son.

“You look tired.” Shane, my boyfriend, wrapped an arm around my shoulders. It was a cool October day, the sky overcast, the breeze blowing gently over my face.

I lifted to my toes for a kiss. “Jacob was up all night,” I said after his lips pulled back from mine.

“You need a noise machine.”

“A what?” We were walking to class on the campus of Berkeley Mountain College. In a few strides, he would veer off toward the music building, and I would head in for the biology test that awaited me like a firing squad.

“A noise machine,” he said again. “It’s like white noise. Helps drown out other sounds.”

“Never heard of it.” What I didn’t say was that I couldn’t imagine not getting up to help Jess. I slid my arm around Shane’s waist and leaned into him, running my cheek over the soft flannel of his shirt.

“Therapists use them, and it sounds like you need one. You’ve been exhausted for as long as I can remember.”

The word exhausted didn’t even begin to describe how I felt.

Jess got pregnant during our senior year of high school by a man who used to be a substitute teacher at our school. Paul left when she

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found out she was pregnant and never returned. Last we heard, he was in Colorado.

His parting words to Jess were “prove it.” Jess didn’t even try to get a paternity test to “prove it.” If he was that big of a jerk, she didn’t want him in the baby’s life anyway. I agreed; however, she could use help financially, if in no other way. Her job at the bookstore barely paid for her part of the rent. The folks at Goodwill knew us by name and even set certain items aside for us. Jess also received frequent donations from the church, which gave her some hope that she’d actually make it through this.

“You can order a sound machine online,” Shane said.

We stopped in front of the biology building. “I’ll think about it.” I turned to him as he dipped down for a kiss. I closed my eyes as his lips lingered on mine. His long, brownish-blond hair fell around my face, tickling my skin until I giggled.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, his lips still pressed to mine.

“Your hair is tickling my face.”

With a swoop, he lifted me off the ground, bringing me to eye level with him—and lip level. “How’s that?” He parted his lips and stifled any response I might’ve had. The feel of his mouth on mine was exquisite. I wouldn’t have answered anyway.

A minute later, I pulled away and shimmied until he set me down. “I better get inside, take a few minutes to prepare. I need all the help I can get.”

“Wanna meet for coffee when you’re done?”

“Sure.”

Shane winked at me, all blue eyes and dimples. Then he walked away, and I watched his long legs carry him toward the music building. His ever-present guitar was slung over his back; his hands were shoved in his front pockets. He moved as if he didn’t have a care in the world, and that was one thing I liked about him. The air around him was always full of calm and peace, like he was in perpetual yoga mode.

I didn’t share that personality trait. Life had always overwhelmed me. Ever since failing fifth grade—the year Aidan died—I had been

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on a personal mission of academic achievement, seeing college and veterinary school as a meal ticket out of my dysfunctional home.

This mission, coupled with a deep, resonating pain that had developed from being a member of my family, left me anxious, alert, and always pushing for the next step toward a better future. There was no sit back and enjoy the ride for me.

I was smiling when I walked away from Shane, trying to hold on to that feeling of ease he always gave me. With each step toward the second-floor biology room, though, pessimism grew thicker and thicker inside of me. I wasn’t prepared for this test. No way. I was zoning out again from the lack of sleep, the steps blurring in front of me.

The classroom was full when I walked in, but no one was talking. Every seat along the long tables was occupied except mine, and every head was bent over our thick textbook. A girl tapped her pencil on the desk. Another student chewed gum with such force I could hear it from the doorway. Someone else drummed their hands on their knees to a silent beat. The nervous energy was palpable.

My contribution was an exhale full of doom, remorse, and I wish I had slept defeat. I stumbled to my chair and slid into it, willing the cool surface of the tabletop beneath my palms to bring me back to Earth.

Well, it’s now or never. I pulled out my textbook and opened it to the marked page. Just as my mind started to settle into the flow of words, my phone dinged with a new text message. Thinking it was Jess, I fumbled through my bag.

But it wasn’t a text from Jess. It was from someone who used to be the single most important person in my life—my old boyfriend, Mike. My heart stutter-stepped. I hadn’t heard from him in months.

When a relationship as intense as ours ends, it can be difficult to find a place in the world where you fit as friends. I hit the read button.

Hey. I’m heading back that way for a few days.

Want to get together?

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My fingers uncurled, and the phone dropped to the ground with a clatter. Everyone turned to stare, some expressions curious, some aggravated at the interruption. I scooped it up just as the professor walked into the room. In one synchronized movement, every student put their book away and grabbed a pencil. Except me. I stared at the text message, my brain trying to comprehend the words.

I’d only seen Mike once since I moved out of his parents’ home last February. He had been walking down Main Street, chatting on his phone, oblivious to everything around him. I was walking toward him on my way to visit Jess at the bookstore. It wasn’t until I stopped right in front of him that he’d looked up.

He had been startled to see me—I could tell by the way his eyes widened and his lips parted. Then those lips morphed into a smile that I couldn’t help but return. In one quick swoop, he had me in a tight hug that I returned more enthusiastically than I meant to.

“God, it’s good to see you, Rowan,” he’d said.

It had been awkward to see him after the way we left things when we broke up, but it had also been…wonderful.

“Miss Slone? Are you with us today, or should we leave you alone with your phone?”

A blush burst over my cheeks like wildfire, and I dropped the phone into my bag.

Professor Sims stood at the front of the class, his gaze shooting daggers into my flaming face.

I sat up straight, cupping my hands together. He cleared his throat, and with a lick of his finger, started passing out test papers, one by one, around the room.

I glanced out the window, trying to steer my mind down a different path—a path that led toward biology, not the past. But when Professor Sims slapped the white paper down in front of me, I didn’t see questions and answers. Rather, the black printed words blurred into an image of Mike’s handsome face.

chapter two Depleted didn’t even begin to describe how I felt after the test. From the sleepless night to the text from Mike to answering questions I didn’t know the answers to, I felt like my bones had turned to sludge.

I barely had the energy to flip open my phone, the ancient hand-me-down I got from Gran years ago, and read the new text from Shane: I’m at the union. Come by when you’re done.

I usually met him after biology when we both had an hour break, and I should’ve headed there now. Shane’s ready smile would have lifted my energy, at least temporarily. And the coffee he would’ve had waiting for me would have helped even more.

Instead, I sat on the edge of a stone wall that surrounded the campus water fountain.

Students passed by, talking in groups, listening to music through their earbuds, lingering in their own solitude. I pulled in a deep breath of cool mountain air, willing it to energize me, to awaken my sleepy cells. But when I thought about getting up, about joining those students in going about my day, my feet just would not move.

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This campus was situated on top of a mountain surrounded by other rising peaks. The leaves were already turning from lush green to red, gold, and brown. When autumn fell in this area, there was nothing in the world more beautiful. I tried to focus on that beauty, tried to use it to jolt my senses to life.

It didn’t work.

The spray from the fountain splattered against my face when I turned toward it. I dipped my fingers into the cold water and thought again about Mike’s text. Why was he coming home in the middle of the semester? It was only October. He shouldn’t have a break until Thanksgiving.

When we were together, I would’ve given my right arm to have him visit. His busy schedule was one reason we broke up. He played on the university soccer team and that kept him from coming home last year, or even really being available at all. The distance between us didn’t seem to bother him, certainly not like it had bothered me.

Why did he want to see me now?

There was another ding on my cell phone, but I didn’t look at it. I pushed my fingers back into the water, creating ripples over the scattered copper pennies lying at the bottom of the fountain. And I thought about pine-colored eyes that melted my heart and spoke to my soul. Ten minutes later, I flipped open my phone.

Are you coming? Shane’s latest text read.

But I scrolled past that one to Mike’s text and hit reply: I’d love to get together. Tell me when and where.

Shane had left the student union by the time I got there, which was just as well and probably a little planned on my part. I yearned for more time to think, to figure out why I was consumed by a simple text.

I shook my head to clear it and meandered through the tables, the tight space overflowing with students and backpacks. I found

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an empty seat at the back of the rectangular room. Before sitting, I pulled out my English lit book and let it land with a thud on the wooden table. I sighed, and the guy sitting at the next table looked up, his expression sour. I flashed an I’m sorry to bother you look, but he bent his head and ignored me.

I eased down onto the hard, plastic chair and closed my eyes.

My nerves pricked with edginess, both from the test and the unexpected text from Mike. Our relationship had been intense, to say the least. We started dating when I was a junior in high school, and within two months, I was staying at his house because living with my own family had become hazardous to my health—literally.

Dad had beat me up, my sister tried to kill herself, and my mother confessed to the murder of my baby brother all those years ago.

Mike and his family had taken me in when I had nowhere to go, allowing me into their lives and their hearts.

When we broke up, it had been more than the severing of a relationship. Mike wasn’t just a boyfriend. He was my first love and first lover, but also a savior during a time when I couldn’t save myself.

Disentangling my life from his had been like carving off a body part that still haunted me like the pain of a phantom limb.

Then there was the issue of moving out of his home, of moving on, of standing on my own for the first time in my life. Getting an apartment with Jess and Jacob. Paying rent. Utilities. Making sure my student loans were secure. Car payments. Groceries. Making sure I ate because no one was there to do that for me. It had been liberating and terrifying at the same time.

I was not the same person I was when we broke up. What would he think about me now?

I chewed the edge of my pen as the words of his text floated through my mind.

Finally, with steely resolve to return to the present and stay there, I opened my English lit book. A twelve-page paper was due in one week, and I had waited until the biology test was behind me to get started. As I turned to the dog-eared page, my phone rang. I

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chose not to acknowledge that I hoped it was Mike calling to follow up on his text. Holding my breath, I flipped it open and stared at the cracked screen. It was Jess.

“What’s up?”

“Jacob won’t quit crying, and I have to get to work. Tanya can watch him for an hour, but I wanted to see when you would be home.” Finding childcare for Jacob was proving to be a daily struggle. First, it was too expensive. Even though Jess’s boss, Mr. Sumners, gave her a raise when he found out she was pregnant, it still wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough.

Our downstairs neighbor, Tanya Johnson, my high school guidance counselor turned friend, helped out with watching him.

But she probably had something else to do this evening, like help another dysfunctional teenager maneuver their way through life.

Thank goodness that was no longer me.

I glanced at my watch. “I can come home now. My statistics class was canceled. I have an English lit paper I have to start tonight, though.” I started gathering my stuff.

“Thanks, Ro. I really appreciate it. I’m sorry to be such a burden.

I’m just…”

I wove through the tables and pushed through the heavy glass doors. “You’re just what?”

“I don’t know. I feel like I’m…we…are too much of a burden.”

“Jess, don’t be silly. You’re no burden. You know how much I love you both.”

I walked toward the parking lot, dodging the colorful leaves falling around me. I opened the door to my ancient car that was better suited for a museum than modern roadways. “I have got to get a new car.” I eased into the worn driver’s seat.

“That’s my point.” Jess’s voice rose to a shrill pitch.

“What’s your point?”

“I know you need a new car. But you can’t get one because you have to make up for the rent I can’t pay. And the groceries. And

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the…” Her voice dropped off, but I could hear her breath shake over the phone.

“Don’t be silly,” I said again. “I’ll be home in twenty. I’ll start the paper when you get home this evening.”

“Okay.”

“Jess?”

There was no answer.

“It’ll be okay. I promise.” But the phone clicked off before I could finish my sentence, and I doubted she heard me.

I punched the gas and sped home, worry prickling at the edges of my brain. Jess seemed to be unraveling. She’d lost the weight she gained from having the baby and was actually too thin now, all knees and elbows and sharp angles. But worse than that, she had started pulling out her hair again.

A habit since high school, it was never more than a single strand here and there, more self-soothing than anything else. But now there was a thinning patch toward the front of her head where her hair parted. I often found strands on the back of the chair where she sat up all night with Jacob. It was as if pulling out her hair were the only way she could make it through those long nights. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to have a noticeable bald spot.

I hurried toward our home, each mile leaving me more unsettled, more filled with a vague sense of pending doom.

“Rowan? It’s Gran.”

“Hey, Gran. What’s up?” Jacob rested on my hip as I warmed his bottle. Jess had left for work an hour ago.

“I got a call from your mother’s caseworker.”

I clenched my teeth as I took Jacob into the living room and sat on the couch. The faint stench of old formula wafted off its frayed fabric.

“Oh yeah?” I managed, bored with the topic already. I didn’t intend for my voice to sound disinterested, but it had. Oh well.

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“First of all,” Gran said, “the caseworker said that Charley-bear is doing great.”

Charley-bear was a dog that came to the animal shelter last year. When I couldn’t bring myself to see my mom, to try to reignite a relationship with her as everyone seemed to think I should, I arranged to have Charley-bear sent to her under a program that pairs prisoners with pets. It allowed me a sense of closure while not having to interact with her.

“That’s good to hear.” I tried to burp Jacob, but he started crying, so I popped the bottle back in his mouth.

“Yes, it’s good news. It was such an amazing idea you had.”

I stayed silent. My relationship with Gran was improving, although we still had hurdles to jump. She knew all along that my mom had smothered Aidan; she’d known since the morning he didn’t wake up. And she let me take the blame. She thought she could save her daughter with the lie and that I wouldn’t be blamed for his “accidental” death since I was only ten. She was so wrong, it was almost laughable. I was blamed—by my dad, my sister, Trina…by myself.

“Well…” Gran cleared her throat as if sensing where my thoughts had gone. “She also said your mom is seeing a new psychiatrist.”

A pit was forming somewhere inside my stomach like it did anytime Gran called to give these updates. She seemed to think I would eventually have a relationship with my mom. She was wrong.

“Your mom is on a new medication.”

The pit expanded like a balloon with each word she spoke.

“There is a new treatment they’re working on. Some new way of doing therapy, I guess.”

I stared out the window, half listening, half counting the leaves on the tree across the parking lot.

“They… I mean…” Gran cleared her throat again. “Dr. Schweitzer would like you to come in.”

There were several branches with red leaves, a few with leaves still green, and protruding right up the middle was a branch with leaves brown and crispy-looking.

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“Dr. Schweitzer thinks it would help both you and…and your mom.”

Jacob spit up all over my hand, the warm milk oozing over my fingers and seeping into the crevices between. Silence came through the other end of the phone. At one point, I heard Gran sigh. The raspy sound irritated me.

“Trina started therapy,” she continued, clearly unable to stand the sound of my silence. “She hasn’t been in a while, but she’s gone in a couple of times.”

Trina was my younger sister. We had zero relationship ties between us. Zero. Trina was the type of girl who was all bubbly blond bimbo on the outside and manipulative psychopath on the inside—a psychopath who was doing hard drugs the last time I saw her. Gran was crazy to think this psychiatrist would help either Mom or Trina.

Jacob started to cry. He needed to be burped and from the weight of his diaper, changed as well.

“Let me ask you one thing.” My voice was clipped at the edges like I had taken sharp scissors to it. “Are you going to see this psychiatrist? You know, to talk about your role in all of this?”

Gran went quiet again before she said, “Yes. Yes, I am. I have been seeing her.”

“Good for you. I gotta go. I’m watching Jacob tonight, and he needs changed.”

“Oh. Okay. Can I leave you Dr. Schweitzer’s number?”

I hung up without answering. Jacob spit up all over my jeans this time and all down his pajamas. I held my breath as I darted to the bathroom to give him a quick bath. I’d worry about Gran’s suggestion later. Or maybe I wouldn’t.

“Hey, babe.” Shane walked into the living room. I had planned to work on my paper after Jess got home but had a sudden and powerful urge to say yes when he asked if he could come over.

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“Hey.” I reached to my toes to kiss him, but he still had to bend down to meet my lips. When I pulled away, I put a finger to my lips. “Jacob’s asleep.”

“Is Jess here?” he whispered.

“Yeah. She went to bed right after she got home from work. I think it’s been a rough few days. Or a rough few months.” I tried to make my voice light, except there really wasn’t anything light about the situation.

Shane left his shoes by the door, then took my hand. “I’m sure.

I mean, it can’t be easy raising a kid on her own.”

I led him to the couch. “She’s not alone. She has me.”

He sat down, his long legs stretched halfway across the compact room. I crawled up beside him, ran a hand through his long hair, and leaned in to smell the scent of his shampoo. I had a thing for the way guys smelled. Shane’s scent was a mix of lemony vanilla from the products he used and fresh air. There was no other way to describe it. He smelled like he’d been basking in a cool breeze under the warm sun, maybe while eating a cupcake, which sounded strange but was oh so delicious.

“How did your test go?” He ran a hand up my leg.

“It was good,” I said into his neck. I stopped his hand before it went too high. Our relationship hadn’t gone that far yet, even though we’d been dating for a couple of months. There was only one boy who I’d been that close to, and it wasn’t Shane.

In true Shane fashion, he didn’t push against my hand, instead moving it from my thigh down to my knee. I laid my small hand over his large one. I hadn’t noticed before, but his hands were completely different from Mike’s. Whereas my ex’s were thick and big, ready to hurl a soccer ball across the field, Shane’s were also large, but thin and more delicate, able to move across guitar strings with beautiful fluidity.

I held my breath as I tried to stall these thoughts. There was no reason to compare these two pairs of hands except that my brain and heart were in a sudden, unexpected battle, and I wasn’t sure why.

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It was foolish allowing thoughts of Mike to creep into my head.

He might just want to grab a cup of coffee and chat about old times.

Or maybe he had a letter from his sister and my friend, Tabitha. She was still living in Australia, and I hadn’t heard from her in months.

Or maybe he wanted to talk about the weather. Who knew?

Letting my mind go there would do no one any good, so I kissed Shane’s neck, pushing aside everything other than the feel of him beside me. In an instant, the comparison was gone, and I was completely lost in the moment. I focused on his smell, the way his hand felt underneath mine, the way his lips worked the magic I was addicted to. There were enough things about Shane to place me so firmly in the present, the past disappeared and the future didn’t exist. The only thing that mattered was making the kiss last as long as we possibly could.

I sighed as he put a hand on my neck and drew me closer, until I was on his lap, straddling him, as close as two clothed people could be.

about the author Tracy Hewitt Meyer is the award-winning young adult author of the Rowan Slone novels and The Reformation of Marli Meade.

Much of her work centers around the challenges teenagers face, and she has tackled the tough topics of teen pregnancy, self-harm, and domestic violence. She holds a B.A. in English and a Master of Social Work. When not writing, she works as a mental health therapist for adults and couples.

She lives in Virginia with her family and beloved pets where she is currently working on her new novel. www.tracyhewittmeyer.com